


Revelation in Three Acts

by Selenay



Category: Cornetto "40 - love" Commercial
Genre: Character Study, Established Relationship, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-11
Updated: 2016-12-11
Packaged: 2018-09-07 22:57:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8819437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Selenay/pseuds/Selenay
Summary: There are certain promotional appearances Maria has never been able to say no to, but it takes a conversation with a stranger to understand why.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [paranoidangel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/paranoidangel/gifts).



> Huge thanks to N and C for beta-ing and helping me to find the story in this story. All remaining mistakes are my own.
> 
> This story was inspired by a couple of the ideas paranoidangel mentioned in their letter, and I had a great time working out how to make it all work. How does one little video create so many thoughts? I hope you enjoy this and Happy Yuletide!

## Act I

The squeak of rubber soles on tile filled the room, bringing a smile to Maria's face even though she was trying to look serious. It was a sound as familiar as the twang of a ball hitting strings, or the soft whump as it hit the net, except for the last few years, it had usually been accompanied by the low murmur from an audience--or roars and groans when a match became heated.

Instead, the squeaks and thwaps were accompanied by chatter, giggles, and the occasional quickly muffled curse.

She surveyed the room slowly, watching the girls knocking balls across the nets, looking for the ones who needed a stance or swing adjustment. All of them needed something, but she only had one day and she wanted to use the time well. She wanted to make a difference. They had already lost two hours while the press were here, filming pieces for the local news and snapping shots of her playing at helping the girls. 

The women who ran Lewisham Tennis Academy had looked surprised when she stayed after the cameras left. Surprised, and unexpectedly pleased. Maria got the impression that when other players came to these kinds of events, they didn't stay.

But how could she leave? The girls in this echoing room were so eager, so excited, and it would have felt wrong to take a few photos, drop a couple of boxes of new rackets from her sponsor, and rush away. She had time. Wimbledon was over and her next tournament wasn't for weeks--she could afford one day.

Debbie hadn't been happy when Maria told her what she was doing. It was going to eat up one of their precious days of post-tournament holiday together. They had so little time, because Debbie was too sensible to quit her job and allow Maria pay for everything, and staying in Wimbledon for almost the full length of the competition had left them with only a few short days before Debbie had to go home. Maria understood why she hadn't been happy, and she wished she'd been able to make Debbie understand why she had to do this.

Maybe it would have been easier if she understood. It had been easy to turn down the other promotional appearances her agent had tried to talk her into, but not this one.

Debbie had decided to spend the morning exploring the British Museum. It didn't escape Maria that playing tourist would keep Debbie away until long after the press left. Debbie had been on show every time Maria stepped onto the court during the competition, and the further she went, the worse it got. Maybe losing in the semis hadn't been all bad; if she'd gone to the final, Debbie would have been even more exposed. It would happen one day, she was determined, but Debbie needed more time to get used to all the attention. Maria hoped she would get used to it eventually.

She shook the thought off and forced her attention back to her immediate task.

There was a girl on the far side of the room with a backhand that had a strange wobbling slice to it. Maria narrowed her eyes. It wouldn't take much work to correct the problem. As the girl moved closer to the net and dropped a beautiful volley at her opponent's feet, a thrill ran through Maria. The girl was good. Very good. If she could ever find a way to afford proper coaching, she had the potential to be something.

Maria caught the eye of Carol, one of the volunteer coaches, and nodded to her target. Carol shot her a relieved smile, and Maria trotted over to see what she could do.

The girl looked up with wide eyes as Maria approached, and only her opponent's terrible aim saved her from taking a tennis ball in the face. She looked to be eight or nine and her academy t-shirt was at least three sizes too big, but so well-washed it had to be a hand-me-down.

"M-Miss?" the girl said.

Maria gave her the gentlest smile she had. "Call me Maria. Now, show me that backhand. With a bit of a work, you'll win matches with it."

## Act II

Debbie arrived as lunch was finishing, but Maria didn't have time for more than a quick hello peck on the cheek before Carol dragged Debbie off to discuss the mini tournament they were planning for the afternoon. Maria tried to tell herself that at least Debbie was here, as promised, and then she mentally slapped herself for even thinking that. Debbie might not be happy about losing a day together, but she would never back out of something she'd said she would do even if she didn't understand why they were here.

As Maria turned back to the class, she caught a flash of movement out of the corner of her eye: a young teen wearing a hijab had moved closer, Maria was sure of it, but the girl didn't look at her. Maria made a mental note, but she kept her voice even as she lined everyone up to practice their serves.

Carol and her colleagues must have worked hard to draw up the roster, because when the tournament began, Maria was pleasantly surprised by how evenly everyone was matched off in the first round, despite the variety of ages and abilities. They had two courts going, Debbie and Carol umpiring one each, and the "matches" were best of five games. None of the matches were walk-overs, and the girls who were knocked out early took their defeats well. Maria wished some of her professional opponents could behave as graciously in defeat as the ten year-old who became the biggest fan of the girl who beat her.

There were benches along the wall for the kids to watch from. Maria didn't think anyone could blame her for sitting down by Debbie's court instead of Carol's. It wasn't quite the same as walking hand in hand through London Zoo or hiding out in their tiny rented flat in their pyjamas, but at least they were in the same building.

After a particularly long point, Debbie looked over and their eyes met for a moment. Maria's stomach filled with butterflies, and she couldn't stop herself smiling. It pulled at the corners of her mouth, escaping from the careful controls she tried to put on it in public.

Debbie rolled her eyes, but there was a small, shy smile curving her lips when she turned back to watch two twelve year-olds fight out a deuce point.

Maria felt the vibration when someone flopped down on the end of her bench, but she didn't look around. Most of the kids had been too shy to approach her after the quick autograph session that morning. She couldn't blame them. If Martina Hingis or Lindsay Davenport had walked into her tennis club when she was starting out, she would have been a little star-struck and tongue-tied, too.

Most of these girls wouldn't get beyond local competitions, maybe county level, but Maria had begun to learn in a free club like this one. It wasn't impossible that the eight year-old with her vicious backhand might make it out, if she had a lot of luck and found the right coach, right sponsor, at the right time.

The bench shuddered a little as someone slid along it, and Maria risked a quick sideways glance. It was the girl in the hijab.

They watched the match in silence for a while. Maria could feel the tension radiating from the girl, even though she was trying to pretend complete absorption in the game.

The final point ended with an ace and cheers broke out around them. Maria was unsurprised when the girl slid a little closer on the bench and coughed.

She turned and offered a smile. "Hello."

"Hi."

The girl's voice was almost lost in the hubbub of new players setting up on the court and congratulations and commiserations being offered to the previous ones. Her gaze stayed fixed ahead, on the court, but Maria was sure she wasn't seeing any of it.

After an awkward pause, Maria slid a little closer and said, "I'm Maria."

The girl almost smiled. "I know."

"I can't stay incognito here, huh?"

"Not really." This time, a smile really did appear, if only for a moment. "Not when you got introduced up front and all those cameras were here."

Maria chuckled. "I forgot about that."

"You forget you're a famous tennis player?"

"I try to," Maria said. "If it's all I think about, I lose my nerve after a while."

"Is that why you stuck around after the cameras left?"

"Kind of. Sometimes it's good to do something that's not practicing or competing, and sitting around doing nothing isn't my thing."

The girl bit her lip and hesitated for a moment. "Couldn't you hang out with your girlfriend?"

Maria shrugged, trying to look nonchalant. "I'll do that tomorrow. Today, I needed to do this, and at least I can watch her doing her umpiring thing. I don't get to see it very often."

"You don't?"

"I don't get a lot of time to see matches I'm not actually playing in, and she's not allowed to umpire my matches any more."

"Oh." The girl didn't speak while another game played, but Maria got the feeling she was thinking hard. While the players regrouped at the end of a hard-fought rally, she turned slightly. "My name is Sima."

"It's nice to meet you, Sima."

Sima smiled and ducked her head, staring intently at her battered trainers.

Maria watched Debbie for a moment, smiling at the intense way she followed the ball as it flew across the court.

"How did you..." Sima trailed off, biting her lip. Maria could have finished the thought for her, but she kept quiet and allowed Sima to get there on her own. "Why did you...why did you decide to come out? Publicly, I mean?"

Or maybe Maria couldn't predict her after all. Usually girls of Sima's age wanted to know how or when she knew she was gay. This was new.

"I mean," Sima continued, "you didn't have to. You could have pretended to just be good friends. Lots of people do that."

"I was out before I met Debbie."

Sima's eyes widened. "You were?" 

Maria chuckled. "I talked about it in a couple of interviews early in my career. My family and my coach thought it was a bad idea, but I didn't have a girlfriend so most reporters ignored it. You can't be a lesbian if you're single, I guess."

"Huh." Sima looked thoughtful. "So why did you do it again? Why didn't you just let them forget?"

"Because it was important to me, and that's how it works if you're not straight--you come out over and over, to every new person you meet. It's not a one time only event." Maria lowered her voice, even though the low buzz of conversation around them from another end change probably hid them anyway. "Why are you so curious? Do you think you might be gay?"

Sima snorted. "I don't think I am, I know I am."

Maria felt her eyes widen.

"Yeah, I don't look the type, do I? We come in all colours."

"It's not that. It's..." Maria sighed. "I didn't know when I was your age. It wasn't even something I thought about until I was a few years older. When I was fourteen, all I wanted was to play tennis. I thought that was why boys were so unappealing--they couldn't get the tennis thing."

"You played tennis with other girls, in competitions with other girls, and you didn't work it out until you were seventeen?"

"Eighteen," Maria sad. "I was single-minded."

"You really were." Sima grinned. "Tennis isn't my main thing, you know. I play hockey. I'm on the county team, and one day I'll play for Team GB."

"Good." Maria returned the smile. "You got your ass handed to you by a ten year-old, so I was hoping you weren't planning to turn pro."

"I'm realistic about my chances here," Sima said. "And I know who I am. I'll have to come out to my parents one day, I'm not stupid, but I think it might be easier than trying to persuade them to let me join a real hockey team."

"Really?

Sima fingered the edge of her hijab. "This was my choice, just so you know. My parents aren't all that traditional. Mum wears jeans. They worry about me getting hurt--that's why I'm here. I think they're hoping I'll fall in love with tennis and stop playing the sport with mud and wooden sticks and really hard balls. I keep telling them it could be worse, I could be playing in goal, but they're kind of stuck on the forward in my team who broke a cheekbone last year."

"It sounds like you know what you want."

"I do." Sima shrugged. "I want to play hockey for Team GB, go to the Olympics, and become a vet. Maybe not in that exact order."

"All good ambitions," Maria said.

"But I want to meet a girl, too, and I don't know how that fits in with everything else. Not if I do it for real, with people knowing she's my girlfriend and not my friend-that's-a-girl. Why did you come out? Wouldn't it have been easier to wait until you retired?" Sima made a face. "I've seen the stuff they say on the Internet. You think my parents are scared for me when I'm playing hockey? They'd be terrified if I got famous and came out and people starting threatening to kill me or rape me."

Maria didn't say anything for a long moment. She needed to get her thoughts together. Sima was right, there was a lot of nasty stuff on the Internet if she looked for it. There was a lot of nasty stuff in the cheap tabloids, too, and that probably wasn't helping Debbie feel comfortable with the press. Being so public about being out wasn't easy, but hiding would have been just as bad. Maria had talked about being gay in more interviews than she could count over the last eighteen months. Being gay, playing tennis while gay, having such a public meet-cute with her current girlfriend...even Debbie had talked to _Diva_ about that part of their story. Nobody had ever asked her why she came out; she had a girlfriend now and that was enough reason. In interviews, they only ever asked when she knew she was gay and who her gay icons were. Or they congratulated her on coming out at last, ignoring the part where she'd been quietly out and single for years. That stung, a lot. Maybe she'd been too quietly out, too conventionally pretty. It had taken years before anyone took her seriously as a tennis player, too.

"Hiding big, important parts of who you are is hard," Maria said eventually, talking slowly while she tried to find the right words. "It gets even harder when there's someone else hiding with you, and I didn't want to make Debbie do that. Being out has its downsides, but it's less stressful than pretending to be something you're not."

"Being out is easier?" Sima said, looking skeptical.

"Some parts are, although it depends on who you need to tell," Maria said. "Don't do it until you're ready, but if you want to get to the top, you'll have to make a choice eventually. Either you'll come out, to everyone, or you'll have to make sure you never even hint it, not to anyone, and hope you never meet someone you might want to be with. Someone always finds out if you try to half-ass being in the closet, and the stress of wondering when someone will find out and try to kill your career with it isn't worth it."

"I thought most people say you should stay in the closet if you want to get to the top."

"I think Kate and Helen Richardson-Walsh would disagree," Maria said.

Sima grinned. "Yeah, they're amazing. But they weren't always out, were they?"

"Things have changed," Maria said. "Even in the last few years, it's better now than it was. You don't have to hide, and it's a lot less stressful not to." She grinned, realising something for the first time. "Sometimes, you even get to feel like you're doing something good, when you get to talk to young women who ask a lot of questions about being out and gay."

Sima ducked her head, but there was a twinkle of mischief in her eyes this time. "Too many questions?"

"I miss talking about my really bad serves."

"You do this kind of thing a lot, huh?"

"The thing I didn't know before I came out, is that with great gayness comes great responsibility."

They exchanged a glance and Maria couldn't hold in a giggle.

## Act III

Later, curled up on the sofa in the tiny flat they'd rented for the month, Debbie poked Maria in the side, making her laugh.

"Counselling again?" Debbie said.

Maria shrugged. "It happens."

"Not to me."

"Yeah, why doesn't it happen to you? Shouldn't you be the approachable one in this relationship?"

The fake sympathetic look on Debbie's face was so ridiculous, it made Maria chuckle.

"After you put all that work into being the scowling, intimidating"--Debbie grinned--"beautiful tennis star, why doesn't everyone try to talk to your much less famous girlfriend instead?"

"Less intimidating, but equally famous and beautiful, you mean," Maria said. "Or did I imagine doing that photo-spread with you for _Diva_ yesterday?"

Debbie's cheeks flushed adorably. That she could still be so sweet and shy after the last eighteen months of press attention only made Maria love her more.

"Shut up," Debbie said. "But yeah, why does everyone have their heart-to-hearts with you?"

"Maybe because you always make sure you're too busy for anyone to corner in these situations?" Maria sighed and rested her head on Debbie's shoulder. "Or maybe it's because their questions aren't the kind you can answer. I guess that's why I say yes when these invitations come in. I wish that I'd had someone to ask when I had the same questions, and if I can be that person for even one girl..." Maria shrugged. "It's worth it."

"What do you mean?"

"This girl wanted to know why I came out instead of pretending you were just a friend. She wants to play field hockey for her country one day, and she's trying to decide how public she needs to be about her sexuality.."

"What did you tell her?"

"That hiding important parts of yourself isn't the easy option, and then I blew her mind by telling her I'd come out years ago, but everyone ignored me when I did it."

"Oh." 

Debbie's eyes were wide and solemn, and Maria knew she understood, but she needed to finish the explanation. "Everyone assumes you're straight unless you tell them you're not, and I was living like a nun, so it was like I came out all over again when I met you, only this time they believed me."

Debbie's shoulder rose under Maria's cheek as she sighed. "So if you hadn't met me..."

"Things would be very different." Maria felt Debbie stiffen, so she reached out and grabbed Debbie's hand, twining their fingers together. "I sometimes wonder whether my serve got so terrible because I was trying so hard to pretend I wasn't lonely and unhappy. I'd been miserable for a really long time, I think, and I didn't know how to stop feeling that way. Until I met you."

If she looked up, Maria was sure Debbie would be blushing again. She always got shy and sweet when Maria talked about her feelings, as though talking meant more and was scarier than every kiss and intimacy they'd shared.

"If I'd tried to hide you," Maria said, "it wouldn't have been easier. There would have been sneaking, and rumours, and press everywhere, and the stress would have killed my game."

"So you came out because it made your game better?"

There was amusement in Debbie's voice, and Maria smiled. "Yeah, I totally came out and became The Gay Tennis Player because it helped my backhand."

"It was your serve that sucked."

"You fixed my serve. I still needed a better backhand."

Debbie snorted and wriggled around, immediately finding all the ticklish spots they'd spent hours learning together. Maria squirmed and laughed, and finally stopped the attack with a kiss that distracted Debbie from her evil tickle campaign.

When Maria raised her head to catch her breath, Debbie's eyes were solemn again. "Are you sure you don't regret it? Being The Gay Tennis Player, I mean?"

It was a question she'd never asked, a conversation they'd never had, but Maria knew the answer immediately. She shook her head. "Never."

"Not even a little bit?"

"Well..." Maria tilted her head. "It would be nice to actually talk about tennis in interviews sometimes..."

A wide smile, one of the rare ones only Maria got to see, lit up Debbie's face. It wasn't always easier, no matter what Maria said. For every young woman she got to talk to, for every fan letter she read from girls who claimed her as an inspiration, there was always a threat or a hateful Tweet to counter them.

But moments like this, gazing down at Debbie and slowly lowering her head for a kiss, these moments were what tipped the balance. They were what made her raise her head and say to the world that yes, she was The Gay Tennis Player and she wouldn't hide ever again. She would bring Debbie to see her win her first Grand Slam, kiss Debbie for everyone to see, and she would let everyone see the love and joy she knew shone from her eyes.

Because love is love, and whether they were in a tiny rental apartment in London or a tennis court at home, Maria was sure love would win every match that mattered.


End file.
